Torbola 31

Torbola 31 explores a hybrid process between photocopying and photography, turning a laser printer into a camera. Shot in the Verzasca Valley, Switzerland, the images reimagine this territory through a raw, tactile, and yet playful approach.

Torbola 31 is part of an applied research project exploring a new hybrid process between photocopying and photography, inspired by the DIY/Xerox tradition. By combining a large-format lens and mirrors with a black-and-white laser printer, I transform what is usually a reproduction machine into an image-making tool, with its own particularities and limitations. Each image is printed directly onto A4 paper, bypassing any digital interface, much like a Polaroid.

As a photographer born during the rise of the digital technology, reconnecting with a physical and sensory approach to photography feel essential.

For this project, I carried my equipment on a trailer attached to a bicycle, pedaling up and down the Verzasca Valley in Switzerland. This mobile setup allowed me to “scan” the landscape, a process that conceptually mirrors the movement of the photocopier’s sensor traveling across the glass. This performance-in-tensive endeavor pays homage to early mountain photographers who carried heavy wet-plate cameras to capture the peaks.

With Torbola 31, I aim to explore a new understanding of the sublime, one that is grounded in a playful, raw and tactile approach. By using abstraction as a form of resistance to the traditional, romantizised vision of alpine landscapes, the project open space for interpretation and imagination. The technical restrictions of shooting with a printer become creatives opportunities, allowing me to respond directly to the textures and rhythm of the land. Thus, the movement of the scanner replaces the shutter of the camera, I can reprint over the same sheet with altered setting, and I can also play with scale by placing object (such a little stones found on the path ) on the scanner glass to intervene directly in the image. The resulting images defy expectations and invite a playful reimagining of the Verzasca valley.